“How cities drive plants extinct”

Abstract – “… We compiled plant extinction rate data for 22 cities around the world. Two-thirds of the variation in plant extinction rates was explained by a combination of the city’s historical development and the current proportion of native vegetation, with the former explaining the greatest variability. As a single variable, the amount of native vegetation remaining also influenced extinction rates, particularly in cities > 200 years old.

Our study demonstrates that the legacies of landscape transformations by agrarian and urban development last for hundreds of years, and modern cities potentially carry a large extinction debt. This finding highlights the importance of preserving native vegetation in urban areas and the need for mitigation to minimize potential plant extinctions in the future.”

Excerpt – “An international team of botanists has compared extinction rates of plants within 22 cities around the world.
Both Singapore and New York City in the US now contain less than one-tenth of their original vegetation, reveals the analysis published in Ecology Letters.
However, San Diego, US and Durban, South Africa still retain over two-thirds of their original flora.
Both the pace of urban change and how many plants remain in a city are good predictors of whether plant species will survive there in the future, says the report.”